Mohammed Taheri-Azar, who drove a rented SUV into a crowd of people in the Pit on the UNC campus in March 2006, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to nine counts of attempted first-degree murder.
He faces 21 to 33 years in prison, and will be sentenced the morning of August 26.
Prosecutors dropped nine counts of aggravated felonious assault as part of a plea bargain.
Taheri-Azar, who graduated from UNC in December 2005, was living in an apartment in Carrboro at the time of the attack. Police evacuated Taheri-Azar’s apartment building at University Commons after he indicated that police would find motives for the attack at his apartment. The bomb squad broke into his apartment and found no explosives.
Taheri-Azar was released to North Carolina Central Prison from Dorothea Dix Hospital in July. Taheri-Azar’s sanity has been in question throughout the trial, and he has undergone two mental evaluations.
—Staff reports